Hack the Vote

Hi all,

I just read through the complaint at the BBV site, and was wondering... doesn't this look like hack work and bad coverup? As a matter of fact, it makes me wonder if Jeff Fisher's claims are somewhat on the level.

This thread is intended to produce LEGITIMATE discussion on the possibility of a vote hack in Florida. Any mention of cybernet needs to be well linked and back with evidence, because frankly, the running joke of a thread is getting old after seeing it reborn every day for days.

What I'm hoping we can do here, together, is build or develop and analyze hypothetical situations in which this could happen, and how to collect information to verify our thoughts. For example, if we believe that Jane Doe in Palm Beach did it from home, we could further hypothesize that her phone records, ISP information, computer files, etc. would give her away.

Let's keep it parsimonious (look for the simple stuff).

Here is a link to BBV for the two of you who may not know: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ :)

Have fun, and I'm hoping people who dove into the Fisher info can pull from that some without getting too cloak and dagger about the explanations.

Warmly,

George

and they're both Bushes . . . chances that it was hacked, imo? . . . about 99.99% . . . whether it can be proven is another story altogether . . . that's why they installed touchscreen voting and had Republican corporations count the votes . . . and why Bev found some of the voting rolls in the trash in Volusia County . . .

No doubt if it is happening, Jeb is somehow attached. We can do better though. We know phone calls by Jeb. From where? To whom?

As a matter of fact, this reminds me of an intriguing theory regarding Rove's calls from the White House and the "stoic" posture by Bush during a time everyone else thought for sure he was loosing. That same DU thread also mentioned the very odd press invite at about 10:03pm EST Nov. 2nd, and the fact that this could have been the "go" signal to a decentralized effort.

There are small facts that allow us to limit the range of possible scenarios.

Let's see what else we can come up with!

- G

in the white house? All smiles, smirking, with his family. Too damn calm. What was the meaning of that attitude? This is my house and I ain't gonna leave it and I know it?

Beyond odd, it is unprecidented. At 10:03pm EST, while polls are still open and word is he is losing, he invited the press up for a photo op. I've read an interesting thread on DU that theorizes that this was some kind of signal to "let the hack begin," and I have wondered since if it could be one of those fact is stranger than fiction things. Perhaps, once we look more at theory compatibility (see later in the thread "advancing the theory") we can check the timing of things to see if that notion jives. I'm wondering if the BBV evidence from Volusia shows the window in which we suspect a hack.

Warmly,

George

Hi there

The problem with coming up with ways the election in Florida could have been hacked, is that there are many ways to do it. However, some things to bear in mind.

Most hacking is done on the inside by insiders.

Therefore, the logical place to start is to look at those who have access to the system. Election officials and third party software and hardware technicians have the most access.

One of the things that provoked my interest in starting a thread like this again was the fact that the BBV site's list of allegations against Volusia County includes the fact that these systems were said not to be networked, yet intrusion attempts were recorded and I believe they mentioned a networked drive or two.

I remember reading an article that hard networked drives were often easy to hack into or through. If there are people knowledgable on this, please add to the thread.

Keep up the good work guys! Let's see where we can go with this.

- G

Yup, a shared drive on a network is a security vulnerability. However, the fact that it was networked at all is a huge vulnerability.

What you really need is a 'white hat' hacker. They could explain things a bit better than I can. The problem being, once again, that there are so many ways to do this.

In short, having a PC networked is like leaving the door of your apartment open, and hoping that the locked front door of the building will keep you secure.

Hi all,

And thanks SmallFatCat for the post. Does anyone reading have anyone we can refer the information about the Volusia computers to? The goal is to find out the different methods in which someone could hack in. We have information about the gems terminal listed in the allegations posted on the BBV website. Perhaps by limiting the range of things that could have happened we can start getting a clearer hypothesis.

Calling all white hat hackers! :)

Warmly,

George

<http://www.whitehats.com/>

It's a bit quiet on their boards, but you never know. Good geeks are worth their weight in gold.

Thanks for the link SmallFatCat. :)

I'll post back here if I get anywhere. If anyone else has more direct contact, please let us know, but for now I'll see if I can't sniff someone out over there.

Thanks again!

Warmly,

George
p.s. Carolab just posted a good thread on a breaking story about technicians coming forward saying they were paid to impersonate FBI and Homeland security. The sum total was reported at $29 million. Everyone should try to at least give that a quick read and see what they think. It has a ring of truth to it, and seems verifiable (with some work) if it is true. But please post comments on about that on the other thread, so we can keep this one nice and functional. :)

and he has extra-credibility because he is Republican. You can contact him at his website: http://www.chuckherrin.com :thumbsup:

will e-mail him or see if he has made comments on this! :) Thanks, - G

I just went to realclearpolitics.com and looked at the exit poll results. I see that they actually did match with the result of the election if taken as a percentage of polling. It appears that no matter how much we may wish it we lost the damned vote, rather than had it stolen.

Man, Real Clear Politics is real right-wing website. I know, because I visited their site many times a day before the election. They deliberately avoid some of the more mainstream pollsters in favor of the more Republican ones. And they're probably looking at the "corrected" exit polls that CNN changed (i.e. contaminated) to conform to the reported results.

I checked it out, it looked RW to me, but wasn't sure. Wonder about this guy--3rd post.

But not wondering about you. Welcome to DU! :hi:

Welcome to DU. Interesting 3rd post. Where on realclearnews.com did you read that? Link?

Hi there,

I will reply to you before 50 others jump you for saying that, because it appears you are new. :)

Welcome, btw.

The Berkely study has been peer reviewed at this point, and the the results have been reporduced by an MIT researcher involved with the original MIT/CALTECH report. (For more on the advancing of this story, go to countdown.msnbc.com , look for "bloggerman" and scroll down until you see a reference to an Oakland paper.)

Make sure and come back! :)

Warmly,

George

One reasonable critic of both the U Penn (Freeman) and Berkeley (Hout) analyses is Marc Blumenthal at http://www.mysterpollster.com if you want to check that out. I will make some comments about the Hout paper below - but the main point I wish could be corrected in EACH of these papers and in other posts and news stories is the claim that we can't audit the vote. We can! Bev Harris and BBV are auditing right now. In my mind, the purpose of the statistical analyses is to provide just enough doubt to cause a complete audit of all voting records. If we stay in 'academic debate mode' long enough then we may eventually come to a consensus about the right way to do the analysis and some agreement about what the results mean. We don't have the time to debate. A poll posted here (at DU) last night indicated that only 57% of Democrats across the nation believed that their vote was counted accurately, and only 27% of Floridian Democrats believed their vote was counted accurately. I have become fond of the "Prove that my vote counts NOW!" calls posted elsewhere on DU. We don't have to have evidence of fraud - all we need to have is concern - and it is 'their' job to show that fraud did not happen.

How can we audit the vote? Even if E-Vote machines don't print voter verified paper receipts they do report to poll booths and the poll booths print 'poll tapes' at the end of the day. The poll tapes are then public records and (at least in Florida) are signed by lots of officials. If hackers planted software to add or shift votes at the level of the individual machines then the poll tapes would be useless records. BUT if they hacked at the level of the central tabulators that add up all of the votes, then the original poll tapes won't match the reports printed by the central tabulators. We can audit the poll tapes and the poll books (which should show the number of people who signed in to vote) in the Evote counties. In the opscan and punch-card counties we can recount the individual votes. I think that they hacked the vote by a wide enough margin so that people would not call for a recount because they don't believe that a recount would put Kerry ahead. I think we have to counter this belief and do the 'forensic analysis' of all available materials in all suspicious states.

Blumenthal's 11/23 post reports on critiques of Hout's paper. The critics were very harsh - particularly Michael McDonald and Andrew Gelman. The upshot of the criticisms was that the critics believe that Hout's entire result is due to only two outliers: Broward County and Palm Beach County. This suggests to the critics that there was almost certainly not any systemic fraud. If there were, it would have showed up in more than just two counties. They argue that the Jewish vote swung Republican in those counties - this is an hypothesis for which they offer no evidence. Blumenthal notes, however, that anyone who wants to continue investigating possible fraud in Florida anyway should focus on Broward and Palm Beach. Sounds okay to me, but I would still insist on recounting the whole state.

Blumenthal's 11/19 post seems to indicate that he is convinced that Stephen Freeman's methodology and conclusion is fair -- that the probability of 10 out of 11 swing states going to Kerry in the exit polls and to Bush in the vote tabulation is very, very low indeed -- absent an error in the exit polls *or* vote tabulation. Of course, Blumenthal concludes that the error is in the exit polls (and quotes Morin's WP article in his 11/22 post to this effect). Blumenthal is right -- all Freeman's paper can do is to indicate that the swing from exit polls to vote results is extremely unlikely to have occurred by chance. The ONLY way to decide why this is true is to EITHER have complete data from Edison-Mitofsky so that we can see exactly what happened with the polls OR to recount the votes. I say let's recount the votes!

this might be worthy of another thread. Nice piece! :) -G

If you think it is worthy of having its own thread could you do it? I either don't yet have access to or can't find how to start a new thread.

:dunce:

once you are in the main forum, press the "Post" button. If you still have problems I would be happy to post for you. :) - G

for finding "Post" would be appreciated.

I don't think I have a "post" button. I read the FAQ and it shows that "Post" has an icon of a pencil on a sheet of notebook paper -- but I don't have one of those at the top of my screen. Maybe because I haven't donated yet? Maybe they raised the number of replies you have to make before you can post because there are so many of us post-election newbies? I have donated more money than I want to admit to myself before & since the election and now I am feeling pinched. The icons I have include: Latest, My Posts, Logout, FAQ, Search, Mark All, Options, Inbox, Bookmarks, Profiles, Calendar. No "Post" that I can see...

:dunce:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203

click the above link, and it will take you to the election results forum. Look about dead center of the header (or somewhere around there) and you will see a row of bottons. One of them says post. Click that one and it should start your new thread for you.

Let me know if I can be of any further help! :)

- G

My first post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x80138

:headbang:

glad I could help. :) -G

due to publishing "sensitive information." What the hell image does that bring to mind?

Just went there, it is up and running.

Hi cavanaghjam,

Could you clarify for me?

Thanks,

George

so long to reply. Family obs and all that.

It was down when I went there. Back up now. Or maybe it's just my puter and the little gremlins that Ashcroft left as a parting gift.

grrr..... :) - G

kick

Hi all,

"16. According to a statement by the Supervisor of Elections on November 17, 2004, the GEMS computer is not networked, and is "stand alone." The furnished computer logs show evidence of at least two attempts to remotely access the GEMS central tabulator, which is claimed to be secure. A computer screen shot printout on November 17, 2004 (found in the trash) shows that the GEMS computer at that time had two networked hard drives." - Complaint at BBV

Once again, this looks like a hack job. Leads? Thoughts?

Let's get Holmesian here. We have something to start with thanks to Bev and the team at BBV, now let's work it some! :)

Warmly,

George

to a bunch of other links....

http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-23.htm#pgfId-1401104

thanks for adding the link. :) Seems like some interesting reading. - G

George,

Sometimes it's good to step back from all of the minutae and get a look at the real overarching conspiracy involed.
May I suggest this link from globalresearch.ca:

Link:http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BAK411A.html

Have a Happy Holiday

Wiley

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1154535#

Scroll down one click

It is our early version - starroute has been updating it, and I'll try to post the latest version this weekend...and we would appreciate all help in filling this in with other bad guys not yet added.

Thanks!

John

thanks John. :) -G

at that URL. Try again? :) Thanks, - G

Here's some followup on the main post:

I was writing the post just before news broke on DU about the following article that claims to know how the vote was hacked:

Link:http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BAK411A.html

here is the DU thread, if you haven't seen it already:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x78323

Now here's the thought... is there compatibility between these two theories, and if so, how do we use the knowledge that is credible (thanks to BBV) to test the assumptions made by the article that claims to know how the vote was hacked? Can we draw inferences logically from the information available?

You all get the point. :)

Warmly,

George

to get to it.

Here's the link again

Many of us here are novice tin foil hatters who have only been at it since the election.
To better frame this discourse and bring it into perspective I offer this link (http://www.hermes-press.com/Voting/vote_rig.htm) by the late Dr. Norman Livergood concerning the danger of electronic manipulation of voting.
Dr. Livergood had been at this stuff so long that he died with gold brocade on his tin foil hat and golden tin foil epaulets on his shoulders.

This link has expired. If you just try to go directly to it you will only get 404 page not found.
You must first go to www.archive.org and then paste in the link.

This is a REALLY GOOD read!

Wiley

thanks for the link! :) -G

The purpose of this thread (as I understand you, George) is to offer a tutorial into logically researching articles and information we take in and separate the solid, well researched work from the tin foil hat stuff.
Therefore I offered this link as an example of stuff from a bonafide tin hat, containing absolutely no new information and snatched from the jaws of the memory hole. Therfore, I think it stands as an example of exactly what we do not want.
Plus, I got to remind everyone about the wayback machine in the process.

Wiley

while it's important to vet the stuff we have, it's also good to remember that some of these writers, like Madsen, who got labeled as lunatic fringe tin foil hatters, have been researching and warning us about this stuff for a long long time. Stuff, like vote-rigging,like vast wingnut fascist takeovers, that are just now coming into bloom.
So, one never knows.
Livergood ranted about a flying monkey right takeover all of his adult life. It now seems to be the case.
Let's be real careful about, as some lately have ranted, shuting down threads and stuff.

Wiley

Hi Wiley,

Thanks for the info and the thoughtful comments. :)

- G

I have seen several referenced to screen shots of the tabulator screen, and to the initial and reprinted machine tapes, but have not seen any of these actually published. I think that having these up in some form to download would help us tremendously in doing our amateur analysis.

I would like to see the screen shot showing the networked drives. There are other explanations for "extra" drives on a PC other than shared drives on a peer, or network servers.

On my PC for example I have an external USB hard drive, and a multi type memory card reader attached. Each of these devices show up as multiple additional lettered memory devices. We need to make sure we don't miss anything, or mis-represent anything either.

I would much rather see these than those goofy photos of those guys on the BBV site. I know the site keeps getting hacked, but a little cleanup could go a long way in making it look more professional.

Finally, has anyone seen a realistic response from Volusia county? I would like to hear what their explanation is for all of this. It does look like at a minimum Gross Incompetence, if not Criminal behavior. In accounting you have to explain or "account for" how you got from the initial totals to the final totals at each step. Just throwing away the initial numbers is not the way to do this! And if these were 2nd signed copies of these tapes, where are the archived original signed copies? Too many un-answered questions, and partial stories here yet.

Hi MackDaddy,

I have seen some response through the local paper in Volusia County, and I'm sure it can be found with a quick google search; possibly also on the threads. They seem to explain it away as if Bev doesn't know what she is talking about, but when reading Bev's statements it is plainly obvious that she does.

I too would love to see someone closer to the data weigh in; it's just a matter of time before they do, I'm sure. It would be nice to see scans of some of the data, and in particular I would love to find out the if we know of a particular "window of opportunity" in which a hack is either thought to have occured or could have occured. I know BBV mentioned logs that might be of use.

Thanks for the reply, and keep checking back. :) Hopefully we'll get some more on this soon.

Warmly,

George

just don't want to se this thread die off. kick :) -G